Experiment in Terror

[Leea, Escape Artist]

[Lori]

I got totally ADDICTED to this series, and I'm not even sure I can tell you why!!!

If you're read any of these books, let's chat!

[Stacia (the 2010 club)]

Lori, do you think this would fit better in UF, since it's closer to horror and has some action? PNR is usually more romancey.

I've only read the first book, so I don't have a feel for the entire series vibe.

[Kay]

This has been on my TBR list for sometime. I hope to get to it soon!

[Lori]

I don't know which genre it fits in, to tell the truth. IMO, though, it's not really UF, 'cuz there's no 'alternate' world to reality - not like Fever. Perry and Dex live in our world, so to speak; they're just ghost hunters.

If PNR is more romancey, than probably not. EiT contains horror, gothic, romance, terror, paranormal, ghosts and other things that go bump in the night.

[Lori]

BTW, I didn't know about Come Alive - I'm excited!

[Leea, Escape Artist]

Kay, Wendy and I are going to start these soon if you (or anyone else) wants to join us... I know i'm hoping Stacia jumps in too once we get past the first book ;)

[Kay]

Is there a date set yet?

[Dee]

i'm up for joining in - I grabbed the first book the other day

[Lori]

Oh, add too...

[Leea, Escape Artist]

Awesome!! Let me check with Wendy to see when we can read it... be back!

[Stacia (the 2010 club)]

Lori McD wrote: "I don't know which genre it fits in, to tell the truth. IMO, though, it's not really UF, 'cuz there's no 'alternate' world to reality - not like Fever. Perry and Dex live in our world, so to speak;..."

UF is often set in our modern world, with magical or other abnormal (werewolves, vamps, etc.)elements, so ghost hunting would/should apply. I just didn't know if it was closer to UF or PNR because of the horror lite angle, but UF usually follows a couple over several books (and is usually first person pov), whereas PNR is one couple per book (and generally third person pov).

So I'm thinking it would fall closer to UF.

[Leea, Escape Artist]

Looks like we're going to star Friday... Here is the thread for the buddy read for those who want to join us. Can't wait!

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

[Gwennie, Mrs. Bookworm]

I think between the two options (PNR/UF) it may fit better under UF.

I'm going to switch it over. :)

I'm so glad to see others joining us on Friday! I'm eager to start this series.

[Dee]

Maybe a horror cat would be a good idea...

[Lori]

So Leea... I'm dying to know... what's the verdict on ? It was a little tough to get into for me, but then I loved it.

[Gwennie, Mrs. Bookworm]

I'm strugging with it, but it could be because I have had very little reading time today.

[Leea, Escape Artist]

I really like it... I'm 75% into it, should finish tomorrow. Wendy are we diving right into ?

Love Pippa and she's had a life. (view spoiler)[I'm to to part where Pippa is seeing demons all the time and it's making her crazy, she almost got hit by a train and ends up in the mental hospital. (hide spoiler)]

[Gwennie, Mrs. Bookworm]

Yeah, we can do that. I'm going to check all the GR threads and then I'll pick it right up and plow through it this morning. It won't take me long and I have a bit of time to finish it. Are you cool with waiting a couple hours for me to finish Pippa's book?

[Regina]

I am just starting this!! I like it so far. So far I am only about 10% in, they are on their way to the coast to visit the uncle.

[Leea, Escape Artist]

Wendy, Yes! LOL!

I can't wait for you to read this Regina, come and check in with us about your progress and thoughts :)

[Gwennie, Mrs. Bookworm]

I really think you'll like this Regina!

[Lisa]

Oh, so that's the difference between UF and Paranormal...I was wondering. I just finished Dead Sky Morning last night and thought it was the best so far and the scariest. Originally had planned to take a short break to read American Gods before continuing EiT but not happening! LOL So I started AG on audio while in the car and reading Lying Seasonon my kindle.

Perry in Seattle (view spoiler)[ staying with Dex and Jenn = awkward! OMG Can't believe it. And the scary bloody wasp lady EEK. Perry has more scary visions in washrooms. I thought for sure she'd have one in the outhouse in Dead Sky. Heck, those are scary without ghostly visions. I like Perry mentioning the Seattle landmarks and I know the area Dex lives in. Have been lost near the landmark Pink Elephant car wash. That's where I asked for directions to I-5 while the kids were in the backseat yelling "Space Needle! Let's go to the Space Needle!" and I'm stressing out majorly, saying "Another time" (we had already been to Woodland Park Zoo that day and I just wanted OUT of all that traffic). I can't imagine Perry driving Put-put from Portland to Seattle! It's just a small scooter, right?

Also can't imagine Dex's relationship with Jenn can last much longer with all his hiding things from her and Jenn's putting his ghost show down. I sometimes think that she's "Anonymous", making those rude comments. (hide spoiler)]

[Regina]

I haven't started Dead Sky Morning yet, but I want to so bad! I need to finish a book first before I get to it.

[Lori]

Lisa... KEEP READING! You're so on track and so right about so much! If you think "Dead Sky Morning" was scary, wait until you get to "On Demon Wings", which is the book right after "Lying Season".

[Lisa]

It helps that these are fast reads and I have On Demon Wings already queued up on my kindle :D Are the shortstories necessary, you think? I didn't buy those yet, or anything beyond #5. I'm liking the scary factor the most and the flawed characters. At time I want to slap Dex upside the head but other times give him a big hug. Perry's parents telling her "to grow up!" OMG, echo of me losing it with my 24 going on 12 yr old son.

[Lori]

YES, the shorts are absolutely necessary to understanding what's going on that you won't get from Perry's POV.

IF you have to pick & choose, I'd say go with Old Blood and The Dex Files (several scenes that you've already read from Dex's POV). But you MUST read Old Blood before going on to "Into the Hollow".

[Gwennie, Mrs. Bookworm]

Old Blood and The Dex Files are VERY necessary. The Benson and With the madness.... Other then a little more insight to the characters, they aren't necessary. They're still worth it though, for entertainment alone.

[Lisa]

All righty then - will add those 2 next - thanks!

Have any of you watched Mystery Theatre 3000? Dex and Perry are watching it and I don't recall the series so I Googled it. Am watching an ep online right now - it's pretty funny. Here's a link, in case anyone's interested. http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=m...

(view spoiler)[Am so glad Perry found a friend - Rebecca. I like her. And Jenn - I just want to kick her arse! Especially after the alley scene with Dex and the clubbing scene. (hide spoiler)]

[Leea, Escape Artist]

I love Rebecca... she's fantastic.

[Tellulah]

Lisa wrote: "All righty then - will add those 2 next - thanks!

Have any of you watched Mystery Theatre 3000? Dex and Perry are watching it and I don't recall the series so I Googled it. Am watching an ep onlin..."

I used to love Mystery Science Theatre. :)

[Gwennie, Mrs. Bookworm]

Love Rebecca! LOOOOATHE Jenn!

[Lisa]

Finished Lying Season (view spoiler)[ What an ending!!!!! I was shocked by Dex's behavior after...you know...where I kept expecting Freaky Abby to show. What's with her absence all of a sudden? And I couldn't believe Perry survived driving Put-put in the snow while drunk but her anger may have sobered her up quite a bit by that point. She must've gone to a motel outside Seattle, like she was thinking. And WTH was Creepy Clown Lady trying to say?? And if Dex is already acting strange/mad, how is hearing that message going to affect him? eeek I certainly didn't see this coming - Dex's behavior afterward...wow... Max moving to Portland...huh... Can only guess why and what will happen now that Perry has quit Dex and the show. Jenn was Anonymous - knew it!! There's other things that I saw coming - sometimes it makes me feel smart LOL. (hide spoiler)] Okay, onto On Demon Wings! Oh man, the cover is really creepy, isn't it? Looks like demon possession time...what's that movie with Linda Blair - super scary? I'm experiencing CRAFT right now and the title isn't popping up. Still.

[Gwennie, Mrs. Bookworm]

The Excorcist, lol. The movie is too scary for me!

[Regina]

That movie scares me. Possession scares me, lol. Not sure why. It is my Catholic upbringing!

[Lisa]

Thanks Wendy, that's the movie and yeah - SCARY! Loved it. The book is even scarier :O I hadn't read the description of On Demon Wings until now and I'm about 1/4 way thru. OMG Lori, you're right! I'm going to have to finish this before I can sleep tonight. Last night was bad enough, from reading all these books, back to back, in a frenzy. DH had gone to bed while I stayed up reading. Alone. Late at night. I kept hearing quiet little noises now and then, like there was someone else in the house. Creepy! My imagination can get wild like Perry's and am very capable of freaking myself out. Sometimes, I have to wake up DH to calm myself down LOL

I'm with you Regina, possession is the scariest thing, for sure, and I'm not Catholic :)

[Leea, Escape Artist]

Lisa, so much will be answered in the next book and Dex short story.

[Lisa]

Yeah, I can see how reading Dex's POV will really help shed some light. I'm 65% thru on Demon Wings and just bought the rest of the series so there'll be no interruption until the wait for #7. Hopefully it won't be long. Says June but no date :(

[Lisa]

On Demon Wings (view spoiler)[ OMG - I think Creepy Clown Lady, Pippa, is Perry's grandmother!! But I don't get how she relates to Dex. Eek, I hope Dex isn't somehow related to Perry! Nah, that can't be - he's French/Irish and she's Italian/Swede. Hmmm... And what's the deal with Max?! (hide spoiler)] I know, answers are in the following books LOL.

[Ladyhawk]

I forget there are two threads running on this series!!!
Lisa you totally passed me too?!?!
Ok, so I put the brakes on for a bit. I can only handle so much scary at a time.
And wow! CRAFT is so much more serious than CRS!! That's what I suffer from. But give me time.

[Gwennie, Mrs. Bookworm]

Leea, maybe it's time to close out the other thread and move it in here so we're not taking up three threads with EiT?

[Lisa]

Yeah Ladyhawk, give it time - the slippery slope from CRS to CRAFT doesn't take long! ;) Sorry for passing you up but once I get on a roll of a really good series, I read until my eyes can't focus anymore and suffer from sleep deprivation. In this case, some of it due to the spookiness.

On Demon Wings (view spoiler)[ I'm such an idiot for even thinking there's a remote chance that Perry & Dex were somehow related. I think it was because Pippa had said how they were so much alike. And they have the same "gift". But it was all solved near the end - whew! The spiders in the tub - my worst nightmare!!!! I was squirming so bad while reading that scene! And then the wasp-spewing scene came in 2nd for scary/grossness. I've grown fond of Ada in this book while disliking Max bigtime! Perry's parents are really pissing me off. I'd like to think that I could never treat my children in the manner they have. For one, when Perry was doing the show - I would've been thrilled, that she's doing something she loves, and glad to see her happy, although worry a bit about her safety (okay, worry a lot). I think Perry is treated like a teenager instead of an adult a lot of the times. Sure, she needs to act more like an adult a lot of those times. And that's where families can fall into behavior patterns that's hard to break. Am I speaking from experience? LOL Moving on...I'm SO glad Ada called Dex!!! (hide spoiler)]

What's with the sloppy editing in these books? Is it just ebooks or what? Sometimes it drives me nuts because it breaks the flow of my reading. I can't help myself. Must be my 'typesetter/proofreader' side coming out (where's my red pencil?). But I'm overlooking these because the stories are SO good :)

[Gwennie, Mrs. Bookworm]

I picked up on it too but I just found myself chuckling at the typo's and such.

[Lisa]

Do you think it's an ebook thing, where the mistakes get made? Are they typed by people whose English isn't a first language?

[Gwennie, Mrs. Bookworm]

I'm not sure. Halle is an independent author so I honestly have no idea how it works in that case.

[Lori]

Yeah, I'm a little confused as to where to discuss these books - LOL! I wouldn't mind one place. But I'll have to remember to keep marking spoilers by BOOK...

Lisa - WOW! You've really been reading! But I raced through these books, too.

On Demon's Wings(view spoiler)[So now you see what happened to Abby, right? She tried to be part of the "possession" or whatever by making the pact with the demon. But the demon won... and while Abby made her presence known, I think she's gone now.

The wasp scene with Ada and Dex was way worse to me than the scene in the mental institution basement.... I felt like I was crawling with bugs! Uck! (hide spoiler)]

I've never been a fan of Perry's parents, especially not her mom. And my opinion of her only got worse as the books went on, especially after .

TYPOS - yeah, being a writer, they really bug me. The whole "lay" "laid", etc., especially. Her site has a whole section devoted to "So You Found A Typo". I get it, but yeah, it can be really irritating. I try to keep reading and focus on Dex & Perry. I think she self-publishes, and in one of her blog posts, I thought she said that her hubby (Dex look-alike) is the editor. I think it's the diff between professional editing and not. I suppose that sounds snobby, but it's so easy to miss your own writing mistakes (word issues, typos, grammar), even though they seem so basic.

MAX - Lisa, after you've read Old Blood, let's discuss. I think my thoughts are in spoilers in the Buddy Read thread. It's so fascinating, isn't it?

I don't get the same vibe between these books and the Fever series. But I guess I can see it. To me, Dex and Perry are "real", while Barrons and Mac are characters in a series. Which might be a crazy way to look at it, but that's my comparison - LOL!

[Gwennie, Mrs. Bookworm]

You can't REALLY get a sense for the Max discussion until after at least reading Dex-Files, but really it's best to really talk about him after Into the Hollow. He's deeeefinitely a good topic of conversation.

Lori, On Demon's Wings, (view spoiler)[I was more freaked out about Dex and imagining him laying on the ground and his entire face covered in moving wasps. That was SOO scary to me! I think if that happened to me my heart would just literally stop. The wasps coming out of Perry's mouth was freaky as hell, but not the same sense of being trapped like Dex had to feel (hide spoiler)].

[Lisa]

On Demon Wings (view spoiler)[ Yep, I saw what happened to Abby even if it was a little confusing. Glad she's gone! I really liked the book even if it was missing the Dex/Perry factor and Perry was in complete misery. The demon factor and horror - that part of it is what I liked the best. Then of course in the last 1/4 of the book when Dex entered it was YES!! Oh, that wa the other scene that really got to me too, Wendy, Dex's face covered with wasps!! Forgot about that one for some weird reason. I couldn't believe he made it thru that one! (hide spoiler)]

After reading Old Blood, and seeing that Max's last name is Jacobs, my mind went, "well, well, well". And then after reading (just finished) The Dex-Files, my theory is still questionable.(view spoiler)[If he's a Jakob guardian whatever, how can he dwell so long on the regular plane where Dex and Perry are? And if he is, who's guardian is he - Dex's or Perry's? At times he seems to be a good guy but mostly he seems bad, to me. A mystery! Love it. In the Dex-Files, the last story where we find out what happens after Dex is arrested - wow! Kinda Hulked out, didn't he? (hide spoiler)]

Old Blood (view spoiler)[ Pippa's story was so heartbreaking!! I'm wondering if it was her shadow that Perry saw outside the lighthouse when she first met Dex and she saw something. Because we know how Pippa wanted Perry and Dex to meet. Maybe it was her, making sure they connected? (hide spoiler)]

Okay, I'm starting Into the Hollow tonight, after GoT :D Look forward to the Max mystery!

[Gwennie, Mrs. Bookworm]

Dex Files and Max, (view spoiler)[Well and if you think about it, nobody else could see the other Jacob/Jakob's (both Perry's and Pippa's). But everyone can see Max so somehow he was able to acquire an actual corporeal form. But he definitely is related to the Jacobs, for sure. Perhaps it's like Pippa's Jakob and he's trying to steer them away from added heartbreak? I think he started as Dex's Jacob and now he's working with the both. Maybe he's trying to undo what Pippa did when she pulled Perry through the portal. I'm not sure... I'm honestly torn about who he is, or really about the how of who he is (hide spoiler)].

[Lisa]

Dex Files (view spoiler)[Another mystery - Dex's new tatt - Where is it? What does it say or what is it? Any ideas? Perry-related? Yeah, that's it Wendy - the who and how of Maximus. (hide spoiler)]